Firth High student puts together career fair

March 18, 2013

Morning News — Leslie Mielke
Checking out a career in cosmetology (and getting their hair done at the same time) are Firth High School students (from left) Brinlee Denney, Covany Gardner and Stephanie Lathrop. Cosmetologists from Austin Kade Academy, 1646 S. Woodruff Ave., in Idaho Falls, are (from left) Ely Ramirez, Camille Gaas and Kassandra Olsen. On Monday morning, a Career Fair took place at Firth High School.

The student body at Firth High School (FHS) spent their morning exploring their possible career interests.
Quinn Alvey arranged the career fair for his senior project.
To begin, Alvey surveyed the 225-member student body, asking them to identify their top 15 interests for a career. After tabulating those results, Alvey then asked each student to narrow their choices to six.
Monday, each student attended six 25-minute session outlining his/her career picks.
The choices were beautician, engineer, physician assistant (P.A.), firefighter/police, nursing, pharmacist, electrician, surgical tech, social worker, lawyer, veterinarian, energy technology, hairstyling, probation officer and doctor.
Alvey had asked people in each field to speak about their profession.
The popular choices were engineer, firefighter/police and nursing.
Dr. Barry Peterson, an ear, nose and throat doctor from Rexburg, graduated from Firth High School in 1990.
"It was 15 years before I got my first real job but [lots of years of schooling is] not totally bad," said Dr. Peterson. "[Medical school] gives you a second chance. They don't care about your grade point average (GPA) from high school but you need to have at least a 3.5 GPA out of college.
"They are looking for a well-rounded person, not just a good student," he said. "Anyone can pass if they put in the time.
"You don't have to have a lot of money to go to medical school," Peterson said. "There is funding for you but you want to keep the loans as low as possible since you need to pay them back.
"I make a good living," he said. "I'm able to pay my bills."
Electrician Mike Lee Miera from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said, "It was 12 years after high school before I decided what I wanted to do after I grew up.
"Not everyone is college material; not everyone can pay for college or whose family can afford college," he said.
It takes 4 1/2 to 5 years to become a journeyman, Meira said. The union pays for you to go to school. A fund, established by the union, pays the schooling bill.
Firth students were interested in the offerings of the Career Fair. If students were interested in medicine, they seemed to choose to hear about careers in that field—nursing, pharmacy, P.A., doctor.
A number of others choose the engineering—electrician fields.
Colter Brewington said he liked the money that could be earned as an engineer or electrician.
Aaron McCree and Dallan Bingham were interested in careers as a P.A. or as policemen or firemen.
The fields of nursing, pharmacy and surgical tech interested sisters Jasmine Santos and Michelle Santos.